Cambai – portable Treehouse

Most of us climbed jauntily into trees as children, some even built their own tree houses. Only few adults fulfill their wish of a treehouse, either because they don’t have the time to build one or the money to assign one they don’t even have a suitable tree. I wanted to design a product which enables grown-ups to spend time in trees, to retrieve the lightheartedness of their childhood and to gain distance from their everyday life. To reach as many as possible, my tree houses are to be set up in parks. To reach as many as possible, my tree houses are to be set up in parks. Similar to roofed wicker beach chairs, they are assembled only in the warm season. It’s possible to collapse them and transport them on their own wheels. These wheels are also used for pulling the treehouse up into the crown along on the bole. The treehouse is suitable for straight grown solitaires with a bole diameter of 70-90 cm (about 30 inches), these broadleaves are common in european parks.

It is made of weather resistant fabric and simple plywood bars which stretch the fabric. It provides enough space for two visitors and is furnished with a lamp, two pillows and a hanging table which can be used to lift for example a picnic from the ground.You enter it by a rope ladder through a hatch, which can be closed with the top of the table. Otherwise you can use the hatch to let your legs swing in the air. Through the large windows stringed with mosquito net, one can behold the landscape and the sky between the leaves. I named my concept “cambai”, a combination of the words Kombai a tribe in Papua New Guinea still living in tree houses and cambium, Latin for change, the growing ring of a tree. The sound of the word is as inviting as the treehouse itself.